Scientists at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson have discovered that megatsunamis on Mars may have been caused by a collision with an asteroid like the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub. The research was published in the journal scientific reports.
By combining data from several rovers, scientists analyzed maps of the Martian surface and identified an impact crater that may have formed as a result of a collision with a massive asteroid. The crater, which they named Pohl, is 110 kilometers in diameter and is located in an area of the northern plains where previous studies have shown it may be covered by an ocean. The authors suggest that the Pol may have formed about 3.4 billion years ago – such an estimate is given by the age of the rocks found here.
The authors simulated asteroid collisions and found that the results of the claimed impact could be similar to the impact of the Chicxulub asteroid on Earth. As previous studies suggest, Chicxulub opened a temporary crater 100 kilometers in diameter on Earth 200 meters below sea level, and also caused a 200-meter-high megatsunami on land.
Simulations have shown that, depending on the size of the asteroid, hitting Mars released 0.5-13 million megatons of TNT energy. For comparison, the amount of energy released by the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested, amounted to about 57 megatons in TNT equivalent. The megatsunami, about 250 meters high, caused by the asteroid reached 1,500 kilometers from the asteroid’s impact site.